American Academy of Pediatrics Five-Year Strategic Plan

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American Academy of Pediatrics Five-Year Strategic​​​​​ Plan​

Learn more about the AAP five-year strategic plan designed to prepare our organization for the future. The plan addresses environmental realities and plays on our strengths to outline what we must do to achieve our mission, advance our Agenda for Children and remain the nation’s leading organization for child health.​

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​Challenges ​and Opportunities ​Facing the Academy Today

​At a significant time of transition and transformation in the pediatric care landscape and the broader health care context, it is important that the Academy clearly define and hone its future direction. In this context, the Academy finds itself at a strategic inflection point in which it must articulate its full value to members and stakeholders in order to achieve its mission.

A strategic planning data gathering process helped clarify key trends shaping the future of pediatric health care and the imperative for the Academy to respond. This strategic plan is developed to be forward-looking with these trends in mind:

Increasing racial and ethnic diversity of patient population

Increasing need for pediatric behavioral and mental healthcare

Evolution towards team-based care

Evolution towards value-based payment models

The need for pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and surgical specialists to function in an evolving array of health delivery systems

Demographic changes within the profession of pediatrics

Evolving concerns and focus of pediatricians, pediatric medical and surgical subspecialists, especially around the social and environmental determinants of health

Enhanced use of technology by both patients / families and health care providers

Given the significance of these trends on the pediatric and broader health care landscape, the Academy is seeking to strengthen its role and mission in order to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults.

Five-Year Strategic Plan

In recent years, the Academy's strategic planning processes have focused on creating annual child health priorities, encapsulated in the Agenda for Children.

For the present strategic planning process, the board purposefully took a different approach – focusing on how the Academy as an organization will remain strong, healthy and vibrant over a five-year time frame.​​ It is important to know that this five-year strategic plan does not supplant the Agenda for Children, and the Academy will continue to create a focus on specific child health prioirities.

1.5. Foster collaboration with other stakeholders in policy, advocacy, and education efforts to enhance the Academy's impact.

GOAL #2: Enrich member value and engagement.

​Guiding objectives

2.1. Attract and represent a vibrant, diverse community of members by serving their evolving needs based on key data and metrics.

2.2. Provide state-of-the-art pediatric practice information in the context of a changing industry and professional landscape.

2.3. Endeavor to meet the professional and personal wellness needs of all members, including those whose practices are impacted by rapid changes in the health care system as well as early career pediatricians, medical subspecialists, and surgical specialists.

2.4. Develop strategies to enhance collaboration with other child health providers, medical societies, and other stakeholders.

GOAL #3: Broaden and diversify pathways for general pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists, pediatric surgical subspecialists, and trainees to exercise leadership within the Academy and the broader public sphere beyond pediatrics.

​Guiding objectives

3.1. Diversify representation on the Academy's board of directors beyond geographic districts to represent a broader array of Academy constituencies.

3.2. Review the role and structure of Academy leadership positions to facilitate broader access to leadership opportunities.

3.3. Foster participation in leadership by historically under-represented member groups at all levels of the Academy.

3.4. Cultivate members' leadership skills to support their participation as leaders in evolving health care systems and other settings beyond the Academy.

GOAL #4: Enhance the Academy’s communication with members and stakeholders.

​Guiding objectives

4.1. Transform the Academy into a digital organization that leverages user-focused and user-friendly digital products in response to member needs.

4.4. Provide clinicians with easy to use point-of-care resources that draw on the highest quality, peer-reviewed clinical information, updated in real time.

4.5. Deepen member, stakeholder, and public awareness of the Academy's work.

GOAL #5: Support strong bi-directional relationships, interaction, and leadership development between AAP and chapters.

​Guiding objectives

5.1. Encourage diversity of all kinds among chapter members, and promote diversity in leadership roles within the AAP.

5.2. Support chapters in their efforts to achieve and maintain financial stability to enhance chapter success.

5.3. Provide assistance to chapters with member recruitment and retention.

5.4. Foster alignment between the strategic plans and the federal and state advocacy initiatives of AAP and state chapters.

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By creating shared priorities, the Academy will be better able to focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders work towards common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes, and assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment.

Indeed, the AAP board of directors and numerous stakeholders participating in the strategic planning process cited the Academy's primary focus on promoting child health and mission-driven culture as its strongest asset, and one that must be maintained. The strategic plan and its core goals, therefore, build on organizational baseline strengths while identifying how the Academy will adapt to the myriad changes in its broader operating environment in ways that ensure its continued leadership championing U.S. children's health and wellbeing.​

The American Acade​my of Pediatrics is dedicated to the principle of a meaningful and healthy life for every child. As an organization of physicians who care for infants, ​​children, adolescents, and young adults, the Aca​demy seeks to promote this goal by encouraging ​and assisting its members in their efforts to meet the overall health needs of children and youth; by providing support and counsel to others concerned with the well-being of children, their growth and development; and by serving as an advocate for children and their families within the community at large.

— preamble to AAP Constitution​​

AAP Core Values

The American Academy of Pediatrics is dedicated to promoting optimal health and wellbeing for every child as well as helping to ensure that Academy members practice the highest quality health care and experience professional satisfaction and personal well being.

The Academy achieves this mission through provision of consistently high levels of value to member pediatricians, pediatric medical and surgical subspecialists, trusted advice to children and families, and professional development opportunities for pediatric leadership. Indeed, as a mission-driven membership-based organization, enhancing child health through its pediatrician and pediatric medical subspecialist and surgical specialist members is at the heart of the Academy's work. Its strengths include a strong emphasis on policy, advocacy, and education; serving as a public face for children's health and the profession; and a mission-driven culture. These services are driven by the Academy's core values and commitments as an organization